Wake Up
by morgana07
Summary: 1-shot. Sam decides to wake Dean up from a nightmare only to realize the mistake he's made too late and then Dean must cope with not only his actions but also his guilt. *Helpful/limp!Sam & Angsty/worried/ angry at himself/guilty!Dean* SPOILERS! 10x17 Inside Man.


**Wake Up**

**Summary: **_1-shot. Sam decides to wake Dean up from a nightmare only to realize the mistake he's made too late and then Dean must cope with not only his actions but also his guilt. *Helpful/limp!Sam &amp; Angsty/worried/ angry at himself/guilty!Dean* SPOILERS! 10x17 Inside Man._

**Warnings: **_Not too many. Some mild language, spoilers as well and some mild violence._

**Tags/Spoilers: **_Tagged to and includes spoilers for the beginning of 10x17 Inside Man._

**Disclaimer: **_I own nothing but the weary mind that creates these._

**Author Note: **_So this plot was offered to the muse by Jenjoremy and is set during the beginning of the newest episode. Thanks and enjoy._

**SPN SPN SPN SPN SPN**

"Sam! No…no…Sam…no…_**Sammy**_!"

Sam Winchester stood in the door to this older brother's room in the bunker for a minute or two. He'd been woken out of a sound sleep by the sounds of Dean screaming and at first the hunter thought perhaps someone had found a way past the bunker's wards and attacked. He'd been prepared as he bolted through the halls with his gun drawn until he got to Dean's room only to find his brother fighting another kind of attack; the kind that Sam had so often fought himself over the years: nightmares.

Slipping the safety back on before placing the pistol on the stand by the door, he let out a shaky breath before going over to the bed to reach down to shake his brother awake…only to realize too late that he'd made a mistake; a very bad mistake.

"Shit!" Sam's fingers had just closed on his brother's shoulder to give him a light shake. He'd seen from the door the way Dean's face was tight, the way his fingers of his hand were clenching as if wrapped around something and as his chest tightened in worry about what Dean was dreaming about increased all the hunter cared about was waking his brother up; stopping the nightmare before it escalated but the moment he touched Dean's shoulder, Sam felt strong fingers suddenly on his throat as Dean's other hand shot up to grab him.

Ever since he'd been a kid, Sam had been taught one thing by both his brother and their ex-Marine father. Never wake up someone who was in a deep sleep and having a nightmare because the person might not be able to wake up enough at first to tell reality from their fears and he could be hurt.

Sam had made that mistake a couple times with Dean. Both when he'd returned from Hell and then Purgatory. Dean was prone to nightmares from both of those places and Sam would often only want to help his brother and not recall their Dad's warnings until he was usually across the room or on the floor with a gun or knife at his throat.

This time as he'd tried to shake Dean awake, he only had a chance to see too wide, too glassy green eyes that almost looked wild to him before Sam found himself being tossed over the bed to hit both the edge of the nightstand beside the bed and then the floor.

"Damn it!" Sam groaned as pain exploded in his head, knowing he'd hit hard enough to split his forehead open even before he felt warm blood running. But then he had other worries to contend with as he found himself pinned to the floor with Dean's weight on his chest, arms held to the floor by his brother's knees as Dean's fists lashed out in a heavy barrage of punches. "Dean! Dean, wake…ugh!" he grunted as a punch hit hard in the center of his chest and suddenly Sam couldn't breathe.

Panic laced through the younger Winchester as he struggled to regain his lungs while also to get at least one arm free to try to either dislodge his brother or defend himself before Dean's wild blows actually managed to do serious damage.

"… … De…De'n!" Sam thought he caught a flash of black but desperately prayed it was just pupil from Dean's mind fighting whatever fear the nightmare had caused and not what he was terrified it could mean. "De'n, wake…wake up! Please! Wake…Dean!"

Dean Winchester's mind was locked in the nightmare. He'd made the mistake of drinking before he went to bed in the hopes that he'd sleep but now as he relived his fight with Cain, as he watched himself brutally stabbing his younger brother to death he couldn't wake up.

He hadn't told Sam what Cain had said about living his life in reverse or what his fate would be. He hadn't because he hadn't wanted to scare Sam or make him even more determined than he was to find a way to remove the mark on his arm; the mark that was currently burning like fire like it did when he lost control of his anger and let violence win out in him.

Dean had sworn he would not hurt his brother. Sam was all the family he had left now that their surrogate father, Bobby Singer, had died a few years earlier. He would not repeat Cain's sins. He was determined to beat this or find a way to take himself out before he ever drew blood on his little brother.

He was so focused on breaking the repeating loop of the nightmare where he stabbed Sam to death that it took him a long time to realize something was different.

"… De'n…wake…De'n…please wake…stop. Ugh…wake…De…"

Broken, raspy, pain filled words slowly became to filter through his foggy brain. He'd been filled with fear and rage and lashing out at the dream image that switched between Sam's bloody face begging him to stop and Cain's mocking one as he bragged that Dean couldn't fight what he was becoming.

He was just drawing his fist back to ram it and the blade he could feel in his hand back through Cain's throat when suddenly he looked down and that was the moment when a terrifying nightmare met a terrifying reality and Dean froze.

"S…Sammy?" he shook himself hard, trying to wake himself up fully as he was suddenly hit with a wave of horror the size of a freight train, closely followed by waves of guilt as he looked down to see Sam's face covered in blood and trying to make words come out of a bleeding mouth as he seemed to be fighting to breath. "No."

Dean fell off of Sam in horror, forcing himself away from his brother until his back hit the wall; green eyes blinking furiously while praying the image of his badly beaten, barely conscious little brother would go away but it wouldn't. It wouldn't go away and only when one glassy eye opened to stare at him did the hunter realize what he'd just done.

"…De…" the simple name had first been used when Sam was a baby, just learning to say his big brother's name. These days Sam, if he was hurt, sick, or drunk, would drop a letter in Dean's name but for him to use this form told the older brother that his brother was hurt and it was his fault.

He'd done the one thing he swore he wouldn't and all Dean could think of as he struggled to his feet to stumble back over to drop to his knees beside Sam, to try to get his brother sitting up or better yet onto the bed so he could see how bad he'd hurt him was how damn glad he was that he hadn't grabbed for the blade or the gun he kept under his pillow.

"Sam? Sammy? Hey, settle down, it's me…I'm…I'm me," Dean caught a flailing fist as Sam tried to shove him away. At first Dean thought it was because he was afraid he was about to do worse to him but then he saw the problem and swore viciously while catching Sam's arm to get it over his shoulders while pulling his brother to his feet and then down on the bed. "Sam!" he pressed a hand to center of Sam's chest to feel it struggling to rise and realizing what must have happened during however the hell long he'd been pounding on Sam. "Hang on, Sammy. Just hang on."

Dean wasn't sure how much of Sam was conscious right then. He wanted to get a wet rag to start wiping the blood away but first he had to get his brother breathing correctly again. "Sit up, lean on me," he said while tugging Sam back up into a sitting position; tucking him against his side and under one arm to help support him while Dean began to rub the heel of the palm of his other hand against the center of Sam's chest.

He felt how tense Sam was and felt him jerk as he first touched his chest. Dean didn't blame Sam for being leery of him after this but he knew what he had to do and would just have to cope with both Sam's fear and his guilt after he had the younger man breathing normally again.

"I'm sorry, Sammy," he began to mumble while pressing the heel of his palm against the center of Sam's chest to continue to rub it in slow small circles. "I didn't…I didn't know it was you. I…I couldn't wake up." Dean knew that wasn't an excuse and he wasn't making any but right then all he wanted was to try to convince Sam he wasn't going to hurt him while trying to help him.

When they'd been teens and sparring one day with weapons, Sam had slipped and taken the butt of a shotgun straight to the center of his chest and was unable to breathe for several minutes. His brother had panicked because as Dean knew well it wasn't fun when your lungs wouldn't work for you and he'd practically had to sit on Sam to get him calmed down long enough to rub his hand over the lump on his chest until the pressure from the shock of the blow eased up and Sam could breathe again.

Dean feared he might have punched Sam hard in the chest and that had been what caused his difficulty in breathing now as well. So he hoped if he could calm Sam down, got him to listen to his orders to try to take small, shallow breaths that soon his lungs would begin to cooperate.

"That's it, kiddo. Just take small breaths for me. It'll get better in a minute or two," he was saying. Dean fought to keep his tone calm, low even as his own heart was pounding and he wanted to beat his head in for what he'd allowed to happen.

He was just about to consider taking Sam to the ER when the hunter suddenly felt his brother's head drop to his shoulder even as Sam's body shuddered with his first real breath in several moments. "Good, that's good, little brother. Just keep breathing for me. Can you lay down yet?" Dean kept his hand rubbing wider circles over Sam's shirt until he felt his chest rising in deeper breaths and then saw a shaking hand lift to give a weak thumb's up gesture. "Okay, I'm going to put you back on the pillows while I grab some towels to start cleaning this blood off. Stay still."

Sam could've said he didn't think he could move yet given that his chest still felt like lead and his head was throbbing from his struggle to breathe but he merely managed a nod and then groaned as he laid back on the pillows Dean hastily propped up under his head.

Dean hurried down the hall to grab what he needed only to pause back by his door to stare at the blood he could see on his knuckles, Sam's blood. "No. I will not hurt him," he whispered tightly.

He could still see flashes of his nightmare as he gently wiped the blood off of Sam's rapidly swelling and bruised face. He saw himself with black eyes again. Black eyes, a hateful smirk and no feelings as he jammed the damn First Blade into Sam's chest over and over until his brother's pleas for him to come back were silent.

The other version of that nightmare was of him sitting at the kitchen table with Sam on evening. They were simply talking over a case. Talking, laughing and being brothers; moments that were slowly coming more frequently between them again after so many years of tension and strife.

Dean, in this dream, watched himself take his silver knife out and going around behind his brother, the little brother that still trusted him to have his back, and began stabbing Sam repeatedly with the blade until he was dead.

It had been Sam's lifeless hazel eyes staring up at him in almost confused shock that was what usually sent Dean screaming from his bed. It had been those eyes he'd snapped back to that night only to realize how damn close he'd come to living out his worst nightmares.

"De'n?" Sam's voice sounded raw but it also sounded uncertain when he spoke finally. "I'm…"

"You're not okay so not try that line on me, Sam," Dean cut him off, hating the sharp deep tone he heard come out of him and the way it made Sam tense but he was furious at himself as well as guilty as hell. "I was beating you to death. I wouldn't have stopped. I…"

Sam cringed at the guilt he heard as well as the burning pain in his chest and his head as Dean winced while cleaning the gash on his forehead but proclaiming that it didn't look like it needed stitches. "Yeah, you would've," he said, pushing up to an elbow to swallow the pain pills and water his brother gave him before dropping back with a groan. "You…you would've stopped."

"We don't know that, Sam. You don't know that," Dean argued, refusing to look at the arm that held the mark he'd so foolishly, so arrogantly had demanded Cain give him; the mark that he know was powerless against.

"No, I know," Sam winced, head hurting and feeling dizzy but at least his lungs were allowing him to draw in breath again. "I know you would've stopped."

Dean dropped the rag after he'd clean the last spot of blood off of his brother's face to stare into Sam's eyes. He could see he was a little shocky but still his eyes weren't as glassy as he expected to see. "How do you know that?" he demanded, fingers shaking as they carded back through Sam's too long hair to push it back out of his eyes where it always seemed to fall when he was sick or hurt. "How can you be so damn sure when I'm not?"

Sam's eyes had closed for a moment but he opened them to stare at his older brother for a long moment as if not understanding only to remember that Dean didn't see himself like Sam did. "Because you're my big brother and you promised after I got you back this time to never to hurt me," he replied simply, having to close his eyes for a moment when the room spun and he missed the raw flash of rare emotion on his older brother's rugged face. "I trust you, Dean. I trust you and we will get you over this."

Dean stared at Sam as if seeing him for the first time and taking advantage of Sam's dizziness and the stronger pain pills he'd given him to wipe his face quickly to cover his sudden burning eyes before letting his hand rest over the center of Sam's chest like he would when his brother had been little and needing comfort.

"I'm not letting this mark hurt you, Sam," he said but knew Sam was falling to sleep and wouldn't hear him. "I made you that promise and I'll keep it."

"We'll make it right, De'n," Sam mumbled, eyes heavy but they opened to stare at him. "I know not to touch you when you're sleeping. This is…my fault. I just wanted you to wake up. It's not your fault. Okay?"

"No, it's not," Dean murmured but smirked as he saw one of his little brother's better bitch faces at his response. "I know what you mean, Sammy. But…right now I don't see it that simply. I don't want to hurt you."

"You won't," Sam forced his eyes to open to look at his brother. "I'll be good when I wake up. You gave me the good stuff, didn't you?"

"Hell yeah," Dean knew with the way Sam had been breathing and the bruises he could see on his face and what he figured would be on his chest that his brother needed to sleep and the good meds would make sure he did. "You sleep and I'll surf porn."

Sam's lips quirked up painfully but he nodded slowly, feeling himself drifting off but pulled himself back awake again. "You'll be okay, Dean," he said. "We'll be okay and get you through this."

"Yeah, I know you will be, little brother," Dean murmured after he watched Sam fall to sleep and finally stay there as he rolled to his side to pull a pillow against his sore chest while Dean's hand stayed on his shoulder. "You're going to be fine. You'll be fine cause I'll find some way to off myself before these nightmares ever come true," he promised and made a silent vow to do just that before he ever hurt his brother.

**The End**


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